1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to electronic mail systems and, more particularly, the invention relates to a method, article of manufacture and apparatus for assisting the response to an electronic mail (e-mail) message.
2. Background of the Related Art
In today's electronic mail (e-mail) environment, many people become overloaded with the amount of e-mail that they receive. This often causes problems when a user decides to prepare a reply message or a forward message in response to an open e-mail message. For example, a related e-mail message may arrive while a user is preparing a reply e-mail message or a forward e-mail message. Alternatively, the user may not have considered all related e-mail messages that are unopened, or previously opened. In either case, the user may send the reply e-mail message or forward e-mail message without considering all other available e-mail messages that are related to the open e-mail message.
To address the other related e-mail messages, the user may need to respond to additional e-mail messages. However, the time spent on responding to these additional e-mail messages reduces productivity. The user may read all other e-mail messages before responding to a previously opened or read e-mail message, but this also causes lost time and wasted productivity.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for a method and apparatus to notify or warn the user of all related e-mail messages before that user responds to a previously opened e-mail message.